Thrice Gone
by Azurite
Summary: [Azureshipping] Another year, another memorial for their late parents. Seto doesn't want to think; Mokuba wants to know. And then, unexpectedly, there's Anzu. She's got her own secrets, and they might just upend everything the Kaiba brothers know...if they'll let her. [Teaser/WIP]
1. Chapter 1

Thrice Gone  
A Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfic  
By Azurite - azurite AT seventh-star DOT net  
seventh-star DOT net

 **Rated:** T/PG-13

 **Pairing:** Seto x Anzu (Azureshipping)

 **Timeline:** Post (anime) series - within a few months or so, when the gang is in their third and final year of high school.

 **Idea Date:** 5/16/2004  
 **Written Date:** 8/10/2015 - Happy belated birthday, Anzu! Sorry Not Sorry I keep throwing you into tragic situations for the sake of romance.  
 **Posted Dates:** 9/23/2015 (Teaser, Tumblr), 9/24/2015 (Teaser, LJ  & DW), 9/25/2015 (AO3, FFnet)

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! This is all for fun, not for profit.

 **Author's Note:** So yeah, I've been off the radar, so to speak, for what, several years? I'm sorry. A LOT has happened. Suffice it to say, I got writer's block of epic proportions, despite "What Doesn't Kill You" chapter 27 being 75% or more written, with the outline complete... but I can't write duels to save my Life (Points). Anyway, thanks to a combination of re-watching the series again from the start in Japanese (!) and my awesome boyfriend/editor, the chapter is now coming along more-or-less nicely (unless you're Kaiba, then it's being somewhat mean). And in the meantime, I've decided that if the writing bug strikes me and it's not for WDKY, who am I to fight it? So here we are with an idea I've had for a long time, prompted to finally being in prose form thanks to a fully-realized scene that popped into my head today.

Thanks for joining me.

* * *

Seto Kaiba smelled the rain before he saw it.

Though he supposed the sky had been a monotonous field of gray the entire day, he hadn't really noticed it until he and Mokuba were leaving the cemetery where their parents' ashes were interred. But he'd smelled the late season rain approaching when he'd kneeled before the family marker, placed a fresh bouquet of vivid lavender aster flowers, delicate cherry blossom branches, bright daffodils, and, as an impulsive last-minute addition, red spider lilies into the vase.

Something about the soil seemed to indicate that it would rain-heavily, and soon-and they shouldn't stay long.

While Seto went through the motions of offering a prayer to their deceased parents, Mokuba stood by his side, looking a bit lost in the cemetery. His dark gray suit was getting too small for him, and he kept fidgeting, pulling at his sleeves and the black tie around his collar.

Truth was, he didn't actually remember much about his parents-nothing about his mother at all, and very little about his father. His mother had died shortly after he was born, and his father just a few years after that.

Seto didn't exactly _talk_ about them, either. He just had this ritual of coming to the cemetery on the same day every year -the day their father had died, Mokuba learned- and making a silent prayer, leaving a bouquet of flowers Mokuba only half-recognized, and then leaving. When they weren't here, it was almost like they had _always_ been Kaibas, never had been thrown out of their family by greedy aunts and uncles who'd spent their inheritance and thoughtlessly left them at the city orphanage, and later adopted by the monster that was Gozaburo.

They didn't talk about the past.

"Hey, Big Brother-" Mokuba started, but Seto clapped his hands and rose to his feet before interrupting his brother.

"Let's go, Mokuba."

He strode away from the grave marker-one of hundreds in this cemetery, many of them with similar bouquets of flowers, some with photos or incense or some other combination- without looking back once. Mokuba couldn't find the words he'd been about to say.

He glanced at the marker with his true family name on it, with the names of his _real_ parents. His father's name still bore traces of red inside of it, somehow. A long time ago, when Mokuba's inquisitiveness was the norm, he'd asked about it; Seto had gruffly told him that because their mother had died before their father, their father's name had been engraved on the stone and inked with red, to indicate that he was still living. The red was supposed to have been removed upon his death, but traces still remained, year after year.

Mokuba wanted to think it meant something, but...

"Wait up, Big Brother!" He scrambled after his brother, his undone dress shoelaces flicking fresh mud up onto the hems of his pants.

* * *

Typhoon season had supposedly ended for this part of Japan already. Mokuba could hear the limousine driver's grumbles at the broadcasting radio even through the glass partition. He was going on about how strong the winds were. Mokuba hazarded a guess that the typhoon season, which should have ended last week, while it was still typical humid July weather, wasn't over just yet. What had started out as a light drizzle quickly turned into a torrential downpour, raindrops hitting the side of the car with such velocity that he thought it might be hailing.

 _'Good thing we made it into the car before it started,'_ Mokuba thought, eyeing the compact umbrella Seto kept tucked in one of the door pockets. They hadn't taken it out with them to the cemetery, but it definitely looked like they'd need it as soon as they got home-whenever that would be. At the rate the limo was going, they'd be lucky if they made it home before New Year's.

Mokuba sighed. Seto was already typing away on his ever-present laptop, back in work mode. They made time for their real parents precisely once a year, for about ten minutes. Mokuba never complained about going-he didn't have any problem with it-but he wanted to know more about his parents, even about the family that had left them behind at the Domino Orphanage. But Seto never seemed to want to talk about it, and Mokuba... he didn't know the right words to ask.

For some reason, he thought this time might be different. He thought he could screw up enough courage to at least ask one thing about their parents. One thing, out of the million and a half questions he had. He was thirteen, after all; how long was he expected to simply not care about who he really was, and where he came from? Was Mokuba supposed to let what had happened with Gozaburo dictate his life, the way Seto had?

Mokuba started drawing shapes on the condensation that formed on the limo windows. He started out with the characters for the different Duel Monster attributes- Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Light, Darkness, and Divine - before smearing them together.

It was then that he saw her.

"Hey driver, stop the car!"

Despite the irritating pounding of rain against the limousine, the car stopped as smoothly as silk-which shouldn't have surprised Seto, as he paid for the best mechanics, the best vehicles, the best parts. He could afford to, now.

Every little bit meant he was protecting Mokuba in some way, even if his teenage ( _'When the hell did that happen?!'_ ) brother didn't realize it-or simply didn't care.

They didn't talk much these days. Seto didn't know what to say. Or worse, he wasn't sure how he would -should?- say it.

Before he could voice the first and simplest thought in his head -"Mokuba, what are you doing?"- his brother was already out of the car, umbrella open as he dashed off into the fog and rain.

Seto slid his way across the seat from the car toward the door left ajar, faintly hearing Mokuba's excitable voice paired with a softer, more subdued one. He was about to step outside and demand to know what his brother was thinking, stopping the car to talk to some stranger in the middle of a downpour, on their way home from their parents' memorial no less, when Mokuba reappeared.

"Big Brother, look who I found!" Mokuba said, hopping onto his seat like it was the entrance to a bouncy castle.

 _'I rescind from the record any thought that my brother was growing up.'_

A second later, the presumed owner of the softer voice Seto heard appeared, and any irritated words he might have had for his brother clogged in his throat.

A dripping wet Anzu Mazaki lifted one leg-clad in black pants that seemed to cling to her like a second skin- into the car before delicately seating herself on the edge and closing the door with her free hand.

"Hello, Kaiba-kun," she said with a brief bob of her head. Her sopping wet head. Had she been out in all that rain without so much as a coat? "Thank you for offering to give me a ride, Mokuba-kun," she added, her voice still surprisingly soft.

That was why his words had stuck in his throat, Seto told himself, not because what few layers of clothing she seemed to be wearing-including a tight gray cardigan and a black collared blouse-were practically adhered to her lithe frame. Since when was Mazaki **quiet**?

It wasn't as if they had many classes together these days-what classes Seto bothered attending- in this, their final year at Domino High. Maybe she'd been this way for the past few months now, ever since they'd come back from Egypt and "the Other Yuugi" had moved on, gone to the Afterlife or whatever.

He'd been there, he'd seen it, but...there were still some things he couldn't quite believe.

It was easier to throw himself into his work.

That was the solution to every uncomfortable conversation these days: ignore it. Work through it. Conversations tended to involve two people, and if one of those two people realized that they weren't being paid attention to in favor of stock purchases and sales, meeting scheduling and product plans, then the conversation would conveniently fade away, back into non-existence.

So he didn't talk about Yuugi, about how much his leaving must have affected Mazaki and how, in some small way, he could relate to it all. What would be the point?

"So this is a typhoon they said," Mokuba told Anzu, glancing intermittently out the window, which he'd smeared even more condensation away from. "I heard it on the radio, they said there are going to be winds of around 120 kilometers an hour!"

"Wow."

Mokuba missed the smirk that curled the corner of his older brother's lips at Anzu's response, but she didn't. Was she supposed to muster enthusiasm for a typhoon that had gotten her soaked to the core?

Well, she supposed it was pretty cool to Mokuba. Maybe he'd never seen a typhoon before. Maybe he and Kaiba were always conveniently out of town whenever the typhoons hit every season. Or maybe they just didn't see or hear anything of the outside world inside their palatial mansion or executive offices.

Anzu bit her lip. She was only grumpy-no, angry-or was it sad?- because of the day. She had no right to take it out on Mokuba, who'd been kind enough to save her from catching pneumonia in this awful weather, or Kaiba, who was probably reluctant to let her drip all over what was probably rich Corinthian leather or something.

She edged a bit further to the end of the seat, hoping that most of the water dripping off her would fall on the part of the limousine floor that wasn't carpeted, and would just slide out the car door and evaporate.

 _Pff!_

Suddenly, a white towel hit her square in the face. Anzu grabbed it in surprise, staring at its source-Kaiba, who was actually looking up from his laptop and had his arm around an ice bucket that probably normally held expensive champagne.

He didn't say anything, and for some reason, Anzu felt her face redden, realizing that he was looking at her-maybe even staring-and she was just dripping all over the place. If he noticed which droplets were rain and which were tears, he didn't let on.

She scrubbed her face with the towel so hard that if she was blushing, he wouldn't be able to tell. She hoped.

"Thanks," she mumbled, using the towel to soak her wet hair and, as an afterthought, absorb at least some of the dampness from her pants and shirt.

Kaiba didn't say anything in response, but then, had Anzu really expected him to? He was never much of a conversationalist anyway.

Mokuba, on the other hand...

"So what were you doing out there anyway, Anzu?" They'd known each other for years now; why bother with honorifics? Well, it wasn't as if the Kaiba brothers ever did, no matter who they were talking to. Jounouchi and Yuugi had typically responded in kind; Anzu had only used honorifics for the brothers because...well, because. It seemed like the right thing to do.

It was what she would have done, anyway... Anzu glanced down at the photo frame she held limply in one hand. The rain had gotten in between the photo and the glass, blurring the photo somewhat and causing the already-sunbleached photo's edges to curl.

 _'Momo...'_


	2. Chapter 2

Thrice Gone  
A Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfic  
By Azurite - azurite AT seventh-star DOT net  
seventh-star DOT net

 **Rated:** T/PG-13

 **Pairing:** Seto x Anzu (Azureshipping)

 **Timeline:** Post (anime) series - within a few months or so, when the gang is in their third and final year of high school.

 **Idea Date:** 5/16/2004 - Proof that I have far too many Yu-Gi-Oh/Azureshipping ideas still in the pipeline.  
 **Written Date:** 8/10/2015 - Happy belated birthday, Anzu! Sorry Not Sorry I keep throwing you into tragic situations for the sake of romance.  
 **Posted Dates:** 10/8/2015

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! This is all for fun, not for profit.

 **Author's Note:** So this picks up immediately where the last part left off. I say "part" and not "chapter," because I originally conceived of this as a one shot, then a three-parter, and then when I thought about putting it out in the world as an experiment, I thought "screw it, I'll just put it out in whatever chunks I feel like," so here we are. Part 2/?

Since the experiment seems to have been a pleasant success, I'm posting this on AO3, Tumblr, and FFnet all on the same night.

* * *

Mokuba didn't notice Anzu stare down, glassy-eyed at the photo frame that she held in her hands. Suddenly Seto had a very good idea just why Anzu had been outside, uncaring about the ceaseless downpour.

"I was visiting my sisters," Anzu said before Seto himself could say anything, reprimand Mokuba on his childish curiosity or lack of propriety. How was he supposed to say those sorts of things when he'd never exactly been a role model for Mokuba when it came to respect for others in the first place?

And of course Mazaki would go and blurt exactly what was on her mind, regardless of whether she really wanted to tell Mokuba or not.

 _'Keh. She's just indulging him.'_

But if Mazaki thought that one little tidbit of information would be enough to quiet Mokuba, she didn't know him at all.

"You have SISTERS?!" Mokuba exclaimed, leaping forward on his seat. "No way, I never knew! Is that a picture of them?"

Anzu smiled faintly, and Seto had the sinking sensation that he was right, and for the first time in a long while, he **really** didn't want to be. She didn't say anything, she just smeared some water from the glass and handed the frame to Mokuba.

Surprisingly, he scuttled across the seat to Seto's side, as if expecting him to examine Anzu's family photo with him with some measure of interest.

Well... he was interested. But only a little. Only because Mokuba was right; it was suprising to learn Mazaki had sisters. He'd never heard of any of them at school, never seen her interact with anyone outside of Yuugi and his little cadre. That just made it all the more possible that his gut suspicion was correct.

The photo was faded, the edges curling from exposure to the elements, including the day's rain. But in the center of the photo were three distinct faces: one with shoulder-length brown hair in a neat, sharp cut-a contrast to the fuzzy gray cardigan she wore with a white blouse underneath and what appeared to be - _'Pajama bottoms? No, that can't be right.'_ -Well, she had on some sort of patterned slacks on. It vaguely looked like there were ballet slippers with hearts and tiaras printed all over, but Seto thought he was seeing things.

He did notice the wheelchair, though.

There were two girls on either side of the one in the wheelchair-one who had to be Anzu, with the same blunt, mid-neck length, angled haircut and choppy bangs. But she wasn't in a Domino High uniform, but that of an elite junior high. She had the same chin and bright blue eyes as her sister in a wheelchair, which led Seto to believe that perhaps Anzu didn't just have sisters, but at least one **twin** sister. With a pair of glasses on her face, she almost seemed like a completely different person. _'Almost.'_

The final girl in the picture was the most surprising, though: she was leaning on her sister's wheelchair like a prop, making a "V is for Victory!" sign with her fingers while she practically mugged the camera with a winking eye covered in purple eyeshadow and a bright red, lipsticked smile. She had to be the eldest of the three, with bleached, long, messy hair, and wearing an open red, osentatiously-embroidered _tokkofuku_ jacket over what appeared to be a nearly-bare chest, wrapped only with the traditional _sarashi_ white cloth. She obviously wasn't wearing the wraps to bind her breasts, though, since their shape was evident even under the "bandages."

' _I am not looking at Mazaki's sister's breasts. I am not looking at Mazaki's sister's breasts...'_

There was no denying that he was a healthy 18 year-old, though. And strictly for observational purposes, he'd noted the third sister was not just wearing older, traditional clothes, but ones generally tailored for men...and then going and flaunting how very much she was **not** a man. Her sleeves and the hems of her baggy pants were also rolled up, and though Seto couldn't see her feet behind her sister's wheelchair, he imagined she was wearing stiletto heels or tall combat boots-something to complete her obvious " _Yanki_ " look.

"Twins?!" Mokuba exclaimed before Seto could comment on the sister that looked like a member of a biker gang.

"Triplets, actually," Anzu said, and Seto and Mokuba both peered closer at the photo. So the _Yanki_ girl wasn't older-she was the same age as these junior high girls?

Obviously Anzu's sisters had opted to live very different lives from one another; unlike the other identical sets Seto had heard of, these girls didn't dress alike, didn't style their hair alike, and didn't even seem care about going to the same school.

Quite abruptly, Mokuba shuffled up onto his knees and peered into Anzu's eyes. He didn't comment on the red rims, as Seto expected he might; a likely obvious answer to the question of why she looked as though she'd been crying went unspoken.

"Wait, so when did you get surgery on your eyes? You're not wearing contacts, and I've never seen you wear glasses..."

Anzu lowered her head and chuckled under her breath.

"You're probably the billionth person to say that," she said after a pause, "But that's not me. That's my sister, Momo."

Anzu wasn't sure whose reaction she enjoyed more; the widening eyes of Mokuba, who started to glance back and forth between Anzu's face and the photograph, or Seto, whose eyes narrowed, almost suspiciously. She'd seen that look before on Seto's face, back when Yuugi or someone started talking about Games of Darkness or Millennium Items.

The memory of that -of **him** \- made Anzu's heart clench, just a bit, before she shook it off.

She decided she liked the look on Seto's face the best, as he tried to look like he **wasn't** looking at the photo and trying to decide if she was somehow the girl in the wheelchair or the girl in the Yanki outfit.

"But if that's not you," Mokuba said, finally voicing his confusion, "Then which one...?"

Anzu smiled at him and pointed at the Yanki girl, watching his eyes widen to the size of saucers.

"No way! You were a _Yanki_!?"

"Mokuba!" Kaiba reprimanded, but Anzu only laughed. She was surprised she could still make the sound, on a day like today, feeling like she did: heavy to the bone, cold inside and out, practically dead to the world. With that one laugh, she felt a flicker of warmth inside her again- something she hadn't felt in a long while.

"We preferred the term 'Lady's', but yes," Anzu affirmed.

"Ehhhh..." Mokuba leaned back, his eyes still wide. He unabashedly looked Anzu up and down, and Anzu felt her face redden again. She lowered her chin to her chest in the hopes that neither of the Kaiba brothers would see her blush.

What was she supposed to have done, hidden the photo? Awkward or not, the Kaiba brothers were being generous, giving her a ride in this weather. She probably owed them, anyway; after all these years, she probably knew more about them than they knew about her. But then again, it wasn't as if they were the sharing sort. She'd learned the most about the Kaiba brothers through witnessing the elder brother's numerous duels: Kaiba versus Yuugi, Kaiba versus Pegasus...Kaiba versus Noa. That had opened her eyes the most to the horrors they'd been through, but she'd never said anything to either of them about it.

Never said how lucky they were, to have survived all of that together.

She didn't think they would understand.

Maybe even now, they still wouldn't.

Thank God she hadn't noticed his face.

It would have been one thing if Anzu had turned out to the be the glasses-clad school girl, or even somehow, the gaunt-faced girl with patterned pajama bottoms sitting in a wheelchair, but...

 _'I was_ not _staring at Mazaki's breasts, I was_ not _staring at Mazaki's breasts...'_

As Seto chanted this in his head, keeping his eyes closed and praying he hadn't developed one of those stereotypical nosebleeds like in some anime, Anzu kept talking.

"...name was Sumomo."

Seto took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "So your parents must have had a thing for fruit," he commented.

Anzu smiled, this time at him, and Seto felt an odd coiling beneath his stomach. He shifted in his seat, crossing his legs to try and make the feeling go away.

"Yeah, right? Momo's 'peach,' Sumomo's 'plum,' and I'm 'apricot'."

Where that sort of obvious comment might have been the end of it for Seto, Anzu surprisingly continued.

"My parents are divorced though. Mom's this famous _ikebana_ arranger, usually off on some design trip or another. I think she's somewhere in Kyoto now? And I haven't seen or heard from my dad in years."

Mokuba asked the next-most obvious question, his brow furrowed in confusion: "So if your mom is out of town, and you just came back from visiting your sisters, then where were you planning on staying? Is your mom not going to be back tonight?"

Anzu shook her head ruefully, letting a sigh escape her lips. She wasn't wearing lipstick, Seto noted -had she ever, that he had seen outside the weathered photograph?- though in the next moment, he had to awkwardly restart his mantra, this time substituting 'lips' for 'breasts.'

"To be honest, I was just going to crash at Yuugi's-"

"You can stay with us," Seto heard himself say, and then he blinked rapidly. Had he actually just **said** that? Had he truly just **done** that? Judging by the astonished expressions on both Anzu and Mokuba's faces, indeed he had.

 _'Well, no going back now.'_

Actually, there was nothing **stopping** him from taking back his words, but somehow he really, really didn't like the idea of a soaking wet, mournful Mazaki staying at his rival's house for who-knew-how-long, waking up sticky from the humid nights, giggling over burnt toast and orange juice, and probably walking hand-in-hand to school.

"I-" Anzu's un-lipsticked lips opened and closed a few times before any additional syllables could make their way out. "Uh, sure. Thank you. Really."

He hadn't actually expected her to **agree**.

Suddenly the mental image of Mazaki waking up sticky had absolutely nothing to do with Yuugi, and he felt that same warm coiling below his stomach again, this time hotter than before.

 _'This might be my worst idea ever.'_ And that was including the time he'd let himself get "controlled" by Anubis and dueled Yuugi yet again, in the hopes of finally dealing him the perfect defeat.

Was **this** going to be the end of him instead? Only time would tell.

* * *

 _More eventually. Stay tuned, you fine folks, you. I love you. You make me happy and get me writing again. While working full time. And in grad school._

 _The more things change, the more things stay the same?_

 _-Azurite_


End file.
